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Food & Farming · Eco Experience 2024
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About the Exhibit
The Eco Experience Building, curated by The Minnesota Pollution
Control Agency (MPCA), programs exhibits, shows, and demos.
They provide resources for fair attendees to continue individual and
community eorts to address environmental issues and engage more
deeply with the environment.
The 2024 Food and Farming Exhibit demonstrated how agroforestry
systems create resilient food production and explored ways we can all
contribute to these sustainable systems.
As climate change continues to pose a threat to our food systems,
sustainable agricultural practices have the power to mitigate and even
reverse those threats. Agroforestry is a particularly eective practice
as it integrates trees, perennials, pasture, and even native species into
more traditional farming practices. The general public does not usually
have this technical knowledge or realize the positive impacts these
farming practices can have on our environment and quality of food.
Through our exhibit, Fair growers were able to engage with these
realities while learning about ways they can support these types of
farming practices through their buying power. They learned about
wind breaks, riparian buers, and silvopasture as well as where to nd
local and sustainable grown maple syrup, apples, elderberry, hazelnuts,
and chicken.
2023 Numbers
Attendance numbers: 218,354 visitors to the Eco Experience
The fair had a 4.9% increase in attendance from ’23 to ’24 while the Eco
Experience ‘”experienced” a 4.3% increase during the same period.
Approximately 15,000, or 6.8% of visitors, participated in Eco Bingo
Volunteer shifts: 144
Number of samples shared: ~95,600
Exhibit Components
Series of educational displays that used a combination of farmers
proles, photos, and facts to demonstrate how agroforestry is used in
Minnesota.
Three daily cooking demonstrations. Celebrated local chefs
and foodmakers oered tips for cooking with local and seasonal
ingredients to create healthy and delicious meals.
Daily sampling. Each day we sampled foods from local farms and
dierent Minnesota food makers.
FEAST! Display. Instead of a Full Fair Sampler Partner, this year we
decided to have a FEAST! display that was present every day of the
Fair. The 2024 magazine was released the day before the Fair began
so we used the opportunity to promote the magazine, our upcoming
FEAST! Event in November and all of our wonderful local food FEAST!
businesses.
Kids activities. Children and families raced vegetables down our
Veggie Gran Prix, played Food Bingo and “Try for Five”, and enjoyed a
new game this year called Where Does It Grow? This new game tests
the kid’s veggie knowledge and makes them think more critically
about where their food comes from.
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Additional Support from:
The Good Acre • Co-op Partners Warehouse
PowerUp is a community
wellness initiative from
HealthPartners. It improves
the health of members,
patients and families
with programs, tools and
resources to promote
eating better, moving more
and feeling good, including
healthy recipes, activities
and games for kids and
educational videos.
RooEsr
Changing the Landscape for Good
Renewing the Countryside
strengthens rural areas by
championing and supporting
rural communities, farmers,
artists, entrepreneurs,
educators, activists and other
people who are renewing
the countryside through
sustainable and innovative
initiatives, businesses, and
projects.
Savanna Institute
and its partners are
working to expand
agroforestry across the
U.S. to foster ecological
resilience, climate
stability, economic
prosperity and vibrant
communities.
Eca Ans To oR aTnr
Illustration by Paul Littleton
Courtesy of the Savanna Institute
To see this exhibit online go to:
renewingthecountryside.org
This exhibit explores agricultural systems known as
agroforestry. Follow the exhibit through each of the seven
towers to learn more about what agroforestry is, what
makes it so special, and how we all benefit from it. Along the
way you’ll read the stories of farmers who are implementing
these systems on their land, and learn what you can do to
help, including eating great, locally-grown food.
Agroforestry
Our Food and Farming exhibit featured
educational displays. The 2024 Agroforestry
exhibit shared information on: dierent
agroforestry techniques including riparian
buer zones, wind breaks, silvopasture,
alley cropping, and forest farming, as well as
examples of how each of these systems are
used by farmers in Minnesota.
The full set of posters can be viewed HERE >>
Cooking Demonstrations
At the Sustainability Stage, the MPCA curates presentations to
encourage sustainable living. In addition to their daily presentations,
we host three, 45-minute cooking demonstrations at 11am, 1pm, and
3pm. We invited 12 Minnesota-based chefs and food experts to share
information about their food, organizations, restaurants, or businesses,
and teach cooking techniques using fresh, local ingredients.
Demonstrations:
Aug. 22nd: Patrice Johnson, Nordic Food Geek
Aug. 23rd: Elle Martinez-Kukowski, Urban Roots
Aug. 24th: Marshay McCain, Marshay in the Garden
Aug. 25th: Ed Zhang, Bao Bao Buns
Aug. 26th: Madeline Summers, Mississippi Market
Aug. 27th: Beth Dooley, Beth Dooley’s Kitchen
Aug. 28th: HealthPartners, Power Up with Chomp
Aug. 29th: Sina War, Minnesota Farmers’ Market Association
Sept. 30th: Lisa John, St. Paul Farmers’ Market
Sept. 31st: Kristin Wiegmann, Reverie Cafe & Bar
Sept. 1st: Brett Olson, Renewing the Countryside
Sept. 2nd: Bertrand Webber, Minneapolis Public Schools
Local Food Sampling Station
To help raise awareness of local food and our FEAST! Local Marketplace
event in November, fteen Minnesota food businesses that source
their ingredients from local farmers sampled their products and shared
their stories. Throughout the day, volunteers also handed out samples
of local foods donated from two Twin Cities based food distributors,
Co-op Partners Warehouse, and The Good Acre. They both provided
locally grown cantaloupe, peaches, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, and
gouda cheese.
Aug. 22nd: Regenerative Agriculture Alliance, and Sailor Mercy
Aug. 23rd: P & TY Granola, and Gingerbread Village
Aug. 24th: Marshay in the Garden, and Jump Chili
Aug. 25th: Bao Bao Buns, and Sacred Blossom Farm
Aug. 26th: Mississippi Market, and Morley’s Maple Syrup
Aug. 27th: Tree Range Farm
Aug. 28th: Gingerbread Village, and Willa’s Oatmilk
Aug. 29th: Bao Bao Buns, and Regenerative Agricultural Alliance
Aug. 30th: The Meatery
Aug 31st: The Meatery, and Gingerbread Village
Sept. 1st: Tree Range Farm, and Eli’s Hot Rockin Cereal
Sept. 2nd: The Meatery, and Sadie Mae’s Comfort Kitchen
Childrens Activities
HealthPartners PowerUp partnered with us on our Kid’s Activity
Area and provided programming on August 28th, Kid’s Day at the Fair.
PowerUp is a community-wide initiative to make it easy and fun to eat
better and move more.
Activities included:
Identifying and then racing local vegetables on the Veggie Grand Prix
A “Try for Five” guess the vegetable game
The new Where Does It Grow game
PowerUp hosted three fun demonstrations of “will it oat?”, engaging
fair-goers to guess which vegetables would oat in a tank of water, had
a dietitian speak on how to promote healthy eating with picky kids,
and story time with Chomp.
Exhibit Partners
PowerUp is a community wellness initiative from
HealthPartners. It improves the health of members,
patients and families with programs, tools and resources
to promote eating better, moving more and feeling good,
including healthy recipes, activities and games for kids
and educational videos.
Savanna Institute and its partners are working to expand
agroforestry across the U.S. to foster ecological resilience,
climate stability, economic prosperity and vibrant
communities.
Renewing the Countryside strengthens rural areas by
championing and supporting rural communities, farmers,
artists, entrepreneurs, educators, activists and other people
who are renewing the countryside through sustainable and
innovative initiatives, businesses, and projects.
Volunteers
We could not have demonstrated the importance of agroforestry
without the help of our many volunteers. This year, we had the
help of 144 volunteer shifts. Volunteers helped during our cooking
demos, sampled food, ran the Kid’s Activity Area and Eco Experience
Building Bingo. Our volunteers greeted fair goers and encouraged
them to participate in the exhibit.
Several of our volunteers have been with us at the Healthy Local Food
and Farms exhibit for multiple years. One couple used to volunteer
for many years on their own and now their whole family comes every
year to volunteer together. We also had a lot of rst time volunteers
who expressed great interest in volunteering again next year.
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Additional Support from:
The Good Acre • Co-op Partners Warehouse
Renewing the Countryside
312 Center Street East
Hammond, Minnesota 55991
info@rtcinfo.org
507.993.6931
www.renewingthecountryside.org
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